Francisella is a genus of bacterial pathogens potentially lethal to humans. We report here for the first time a novel Francisella-like endosymbiont discovered in a hard-tick (Rhipicephalus sanguineus s.l.) obtained from a chicken (Gallus domesticus) in Thailand. The phylogenetic results indicate the 16S rDNA sequences of this Francisella bacterium form a unique clade with the Francisella-like e...

Abstract Background This review documents the hard tick species that have been reported in Nigeria, their distribution, pathogens transmitted and disease they cause Nigeria; literature considered studies were conducted between 2000 2021. Main body The (Ixodidae) widely present country are those of genera; Amblyomma, Rhipicephalus/Boophilus, Hyalomma, Ixodes, Dermacentor Haemaphysalis among whic...

Tick-borne diseases are a serious concern in Japan, and it is important to clarify the factors determining distribution of hard ticks (Acari: Ixodida: Ixodidae). To investigate how presence sika deer ( Cervus nippon Temminck, 1838) affects ticks, were collected from 28 sites Tottori Prefecture, western early summer (June) autumn (October) 2019. In addition, data on fecal pellets recorded Octobe...

The suborder Ixodida includes many tick species of medical and veterinary importance, but little is known about the genomic characteristics of these ticks. We report the first study to determine genome size in two species of Argasidae (soft ticks) and seven species of Ixodidae (hard ticks) using flow cytometry analysis of fluorescent stained nuclei. Our results indicate a large haploid genome s...

BACKGROUND Dermacentor reticulatus (Fabricius, 1794) is distributed in Europe and Asia where it infests and transmits disease-causing pathogens to humans, pets and other domestic and wild animals. However, despite its role as a vector of emerging or re-emerging diseases, very little information is available on the genome, transcriptome and proteome of D. reticulatus. Tick larvae are the first d...

Mixed or multiple-strain infections are common in vector-borne diseases and have important implications for the epidemiology of these pathogens. Previous studies have mainly focused on interactions between pathogen strains in the vertebrate host, but little is known about what happens in the arthropod vector. Borrelia afzelii and Borrelia garinii are two species of spirochete bacteria that caus...

Ixodid ticks are well known for spreading transmitted tick-borne pathogens while being attached to their hosts for almost 1-2 weeks to obtain blood meals. Thus, they must secrete many immunosuppressant factors to combat the hosts' immune system. In the present work, we investigated an immunosuppressant peptide of the hard tick Amblyomma variegatum. This peptide, named amregulin, is composed of ...